OCR Text |
Show Three Times More Die On Highways In 1953 Than In Entire Korean War; filore Cars, Longer Trips Are Causes i Killed 95,000 Injured 9,600,000 The cost $9,100,000,000 That was the toll extracted from America in 1953 -not by bullets on the battlefield, but by accident on the homefront. The 1953 accident toll was announced today by the National Nation-al Safety Council. The Council pointed out that the death toll from accident last year alone was more than three times as great as the toll ol American dead during the entire en-tire Korean war. "N'o one is trying to imply the danger on the homefront is as great as on the battle-front," battle-front," said Ned H. Dearborn, the' president of the Councu. "But we do believe that no civilized civ-ilized nation can long endure this tragic' and disgraceful waste of manpower and resources resour-ces from accidents that are avoidable. ! "The past year, thank heaven, brought an end to death on the battlefields in Korea. But. it brought no end to wholesale death by accident on the highways, high-ways, in the homes on the job and elsewhere in America. Huge as it was, the 1953 accident ac-cident death toll was 1,000 below be-low that of the year beiore, and the 1953 all accident death rate was the lowest on record. Motor vehicle accidents remained re-mained the nation's No. 1 accident ac-cident killer, with home accidents acci-dents in second place. But while the home accident death toll came dbwn by 1,000 frtfm the year' before, the traffic death toll went up 1 per cent over 1952 to reach 38,300 biggest' big-gest' in the nation's history except ex-cept for 1937 and 1941. The Council said the increase in the traffic toll, and its stubborn stub-born resistance to any reduction reduc-tion can be attributed largely to' the fact that the mumber of vehicles on the road and the number of miles they traveled reached an all-time high in 1953. To emphasize the gravity of the traffic accident problem, the Council pointed out that the 1953 traffic death "toll alone was almost one and a half times as great as the battle death toll of Americans in the Korean war. Of the 46 states which reported re-ported their preliminary motor vehicle death toll for the year, 17 had decreases from 1952, six had no change from the previous pre-vious year, and 23 had increases. increas-es. The 5 leading states showing reductions were: Oregon, 19; Utah, 15: Washington, 14; Colorado, 12; and Idaho, 9. Continuation of the 15 reduction re-duction in traffic deaths from the previous year is the goal set by the Utah Safety Council. "If we can't make a 100 reduction, re-duction, let's keep our monthly figures below those of the corresponding cor-responding months last year," the safety council urged. That this can be done was demonstrated demon-strated in January when the number of deaths was cut exactly ex-actly in half of the figure for January, 1953. The safety council, in calling upon all Utahns to join in its "save lives" campaign, stated that if we can save only three lives a month in comparison with the 1953 monthly figures, we will have achieved the best record since the war. With the eight lives already naved in January and by saving a minimum min-imum of three each month for the rest of the year, we could hold the yearly total to 168 and end the year with about a 19 reduction from the 1953 total. "We CAN do it, so let's do it," the safety council concluded, - 1 1 ' 1 lit t ' j "I ; A"- I f &. ' . t it . ? TOP MUSIC SCHOLAR Neil Sullivan, blind student'.; I College of City of New vru " V ceived award for 100 pet ' grade in state music tests 1 plays piano,, clarinet and , phone. J |